New Release Birb- Red Sparrow

Red Sparrow
Starring: Jennifer Lawrence and Joel Edgerton
Directed By Francis Lawrence
US Release Date: March 2nd, 2018
My First Viewing: March 2nd, 2018
image credit: movieposter.com

Red Sparrow stars Jennifer Lawrence as Dominika, a Russian ballet dancer turned spy and Joel Edgerton as the CIA agent Nate Nash, who Dominika is tasked with following and gaining his trust to be able to find out who Nash's mole inside the Russian government is.

We follow Dominika every step of the way, from ballet dancer through her Sparrow training (Sparrows being secret intelligence agents who use their minds and bodies as weapons to gain trust and power), and her journey with Nash. Lawrence is very good in the lead role, putting herself in many different vulnerable positions but always trying to be a step ahead. Director Francis Lawrence has plenty of experience directing Jennifer Lawrence, with his last three films being the last three Hunger Games movies. We don't really know where her mindset is as the story unfolds. Is she really helping the CIA, or is she ensuring that she can get her mother (Joely Richardson) the medical care she needs by working with her uncle (Matthias Schoenaerts) with the Russian government?

While Red Sparrow does have it's fair share of intense moments, it is a very brutal film that could have been shaved by 15-20 minutes. Taken down to closer to two hours, it would have been a more compact film with the intense moments meaning much more. I thought this was a good film, but it feels every bit its 139-minute runtime.

Red Sparrow is rated R for brutal violence/torture, language, and sexuality/nudity. What are your thoughts? Leave a comment at twitter.com/moviebirb or facebook.com/moviebirb.

-birb

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